Hyperlocal won't wait

Newspapers and TV stations have been throwing around the hyperlocal buzzword for years. Some have actually done something with it and launched web sites focused on tight geographic areas. But many of these are thinly-resourced and dependent on user-generated content that's been slow to come.

So what happens when a media-adept resident of a neighborhood looks around and realizes that there's an opportunity unmet by the local publisher or broadcaster?

In Cory Bergman's case, he and his wife launch a neighborhood news site that winds up netting more readers than the local print community paper.

Bergman, who runs the excellent Lost Remote media blog, describes how he used off-the-rack tools to create what he calls his own hyperlocal experiment:

Soon after we moved to the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard last year, my wife Kate reserved MyBallard.com after we noticed there was no daily news source dedicated to the community of 35,000. We rolled out a standard Wordpress blog and started writing about news in the neighborhood. We added an events calendar, restaurant guide and a forum, too.

The lesson: There's an entire subset of people who are absolutely comfortable with the tools of content creation who, when they see a need for news or communication, don't wait for someone else or some vast media company to create it for them.

How is your neighborhood being served by your local newspaper? Is there an opportunity to do more? Have you already reserved the URL?